Olya Petrakova Director

Olya Petrakova is a theatre director, producer, performer and guest lecturer at the University of Exeter. Olya has worked extensively with world-renowned clown Slava Polunin, as theatre and festival director and scholar. Together with Bryan Brown, she created ARTEL (American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory), a visual theatre company. ARTEL has presented at the British Grotowski Project (UK 2009), The World is a Place of Truth festival (Poland 2009), The Director’s Forum (Wales 2010), The Laboratory Theatre Network (2012-2015), The S-Word (2016) and led workshops in Russia, Poland, UK and USA. With ARTEL and other partners, Olya redeveloped uninhabitable automotive garages in the heart of Hollywood to serve as the performance center Artworks Theatre and Studios (2003-2015). While forging new performances with ARTEL, Olya spearheaded numerous events, festivals & conferences at Artworks such as the Los Angeles Physical Theatre Festival, Art Via Corpora Festivals (part of Hollywood Fringe), Around The Teapot un-conferences, Gogol-Mogol Tearoom Salons, etc. Artworks, later known as Schkapf (2013-2015), also served as an incubator which mentored and developed local ensemble and visual theatre productions, and introduced exchange programs with international theatre practitioners. Together with Charlotte Evans, she continues this activity in EXETER with the collective project MAKETANK which aims to provide space, mentorship and visibility for the cultivation of a vibrant local theatre & performance ecology in the city and the region.